"All this region is very level and full of forests, vines and butternut trees. No Christian has ever visited this land and we had all the misery of the world trying to paddle the river upstream." Samuel de Champlain

A study out of Quebec correlating children’s IQ levels and drinking well water containing higher amounts of manganese puts Langley Township in the spotlight, given the number of its residents who use groundwater. The Township of Langley is home to approximately 104,000 residents. Of these, around 80,000 are supplied by the Township’s municipal wells (using groundwater), while the remaining use water from either private wells or from community wells.

The western system, servicing Murrayville, Brookswood and northwest Langley, is a mixture of surface water provided by the Greater Vancouver Water District (GVWD) and groundwater extracted from municipal wells. The eastern system, covering Aldergrove, Gloucester Industrial Estates and the two small community well networks of Tall Timbers and Acadia, is entirely dependent on groundwater.

According to the recently released study, children whose drinking water contains high levels of manganese appear to have lower IQ scores, on average, than children who are not exposed to the metal. Among the more than 200 kids whose tap water was in the upper 20 per cent of manganese concentration, their average IQ was six points below children whose water contained little or no manganese.

Manganese levels in drinking water are not regulated in Canada or the U.S. The conclusion of the study asked that guidelines for safe levels of manganese be revisited by the federal government and/or by the World Health Organization.

“Manganese is naturally occurring in all groundwater in Langley and across North America,” said Kevin Larsen, Township’s manager of water resources. “Until this study came out, I am not aware of any links from manganese and health.” The Aldergrove water treatment plant was built to remove high levels of iron and manganese, he said. But that was for aesthetic reasons, not health requirements. Higher levels of the two metals can stain laundry and plumbing fixtures and can bring an unpleasant odour to water, he explained.

There is no treatment of water for Murrayville, Brookswood or Walnut Grove areas, however, the levels drop because the water is mixed with Metro Vancouver’s supply. Levels have been found to be just slightly higher than the aesthetic requirements of .005 mg per liter in those areas in 2009, he said. The aesthetic objectives for manganese were not met in 2009 for several Township water sources, according to a 2009 report. Brookswood and Murrayville ground water sources are mixed with GVWD water, decreasing manganese levels.

Tall Timbers residents filed no water related complaints in 2009, and Willoughby well water is only used if required by peak summer demand. Larsen suspects that this new study may result in more studies being done locally to see if manganese levels should be regulated. “We haven’t been contacted by Fraser Health yet. “We’ve been through this before with arsenic levels. It was a drawn out process and I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ve heard about manganese,” he said.

Dave Mellis, of EDS Pumps in Langley, who also has sat on the B.C. Groundwater Association, said he does a lot of business treating well water that has high levels of manganese and iron. It’s an easy fix, he said. He’s taking the results of this study with a grain of salt. His company EDS has been treating water in Langley for 48 years. “You don’t want to panic. Studies come out every year,” he said.

The lengthy study, published in the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives, also said studies have been done in a rural part of China and in Bangladesh indicating lower IQs of children who are exposed to manganese.

FACTS ABOUT MANGANESE

• The aesthetic objective for manganese in drinking water is less than or equal to 0.05 mg/L.

• The taste and smell of manganese or iron at concentrations above the drinking water guidelines may be noted by some water users.

• Boiling water is not recommended for removing iron and manganese as it will likely increase their concentration.

• They can be removed with chlorine, ozone or by adding chemicals that cause the metals to form a solid that will settle or be filtered out

• Iron filters are great for reducing iron and manganese levels in your water."

I'm the second generation of my family that lives in Richelieu, Quebec, in Canada. My family tree, both from my mother's and my father's side, has its roots in Quebec since the beginning of the 1600s: my ancestors crossed the ocean from France, leaving Perche and Normandy behind them. Both French AND English are my mother tongues: I learned to talk in both languages when I was a baby, and both my parents were perfectly bilingual too.